Red/Blue Dress Project coming along nicely~

Despite the hot weather this weekend, I managed to get some work done on my dress project!

I cut the full circle skirt out of a square of cobalt blue satin, which I'd folded into quarters. I was served by a lovely lady at Spotlight who was extremely helpful about my project, including explaining the way to make a full circle skirt (because I'm not working from a pattern). I normally have fairly bad luck at Spotlight stores with the material salespeople, but she restored my faith in asking for advice. :)

I then sewed the skirt to the inside of the bodice, having carefully unpicked the lining when I was removing the original skirt. I wish I'd left myself slightly more in the selvage, but I wanted the maximum length in the skirt that I could manage, since I love my skirts long.

Then I hand-stitched the zip in, since I didn't trust myself to do a close enough job with the sewing machine. The zip is a hidden/invisible zip, and because the colour of the zip itself is red, I had to do my best to hide it when worn. I think each side took me 4-5 attempts before the colour was concealed and the zip worked all the way!

I'm mostly pleased with how it turned out. There's a small amount of puckering  on the right side of the zip, and a small part of it peeks through where the bodice and skirt meet. But it's not bad for a first attempt, seeing as my hand-stitching is notoriously bad!

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with how well this project is going, and how quickly it's coming together. All I need to do now is to seal the back seam with a zigzag stitch (coz I don't have an overlocker), fasten the zip to the seam securely, hem the skirt, sew the bodice lining back in, and attach the ribbon-belt around the waistline! And then it's pretty much done! Although, since I have quite a bit of the blue satin fabric left from the unused corners of the skirt, I think I might make a hair piece to accompany the dress, or maybe even a bag (if I can find an easy design)! ^___^

And my boyfriend has just suggested that, given the colour palette, I might be able to turn this into a cosplay. I'm thinking Lolita Captain America? ^_~ Although the skirt would have to be red and the bodice should be blue. Ah well. Maybe I can just make the shield and pin some stars on?

Happy crafting!